


Back of the Garden

by cofax



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bob - Freeform, Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-19
Updated: 2009-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-03 08:39:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>In some lights, you can see John Winchester in him: the smile that stutters your lungs, the unsignaled shift to cold determination, the high walls keeping everyone not a Winchester out of his business.</i>  Post-ep for "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part II"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Back of the Garden

**Author's Note:**

> For Hossgal.

Bobby's got more land than most people realize; it's a long lot, with the junkyard at the front and the house behind it. But behind _that_ is Bobby's secret: a dense raised-bed organic garden, gone long fallow now but for the bed planted with rosemary, sage, and marjoram--and a dozen more esoteric herbs. On the far side of the garden is a patch of open ground, encircled by poplars shielding it from the never-ending South Dakota wind.

You find Dean Winchester there, head propped on a tussock of prairie grass, a beer at his side despite the chill air. He hears you coming: you're making no effort to be quiet, and you never had Bill's stealth or Joanna Beth's grace. You swiped a blanket from Bobby's couch and you wrap it a little closer as you sit down, hoping Rumsfeld doesn't have fleas.

Dean doesn't say anything, although you're close enough that your knee nudges his shoulder. You'd think he was asleep, but there's just enough light from the waxing moon and Bobby's kitchen windows to reveal the quick blink of unfairly-long lashes.

In some lights, you can see John Winchester in him: the smile that stutters your lungs, the unsignaled shift to cold determination, the high walls keeping everyone not a Winchester out of his business. But he's more brittle than John, and that you can tell this based on little more than a dozen phone calls and four flesh-and-blood meetings would make you fear for him. If you had any energy to fear for anyone but yourself--and Jo. Wherever she is.

"So, I'm sorry," he says.

You blink, startled out of your thoughts. "What for?"

His head jerks up as he turns to stare at you. "For--for everything! Jesus, Ellen, you got nothing but the clothes on your back!"

You stopped in Pierre, actually, and bought new jeans to replace your reeking khakis, a four-pack of Jockey For Her, and some deodorant. There's probably still ash ground into the lug soles of your boots: you don't want to think about what else might be in the ash.

When you grunt and tap his shoulder, he looks at you blankly for a minute, and then reaches the beer across to you. It's still nearly full. Bobby's not one for fancy micro brews, like the occasional day-tripper you used to get; this is St. Pauli Girl, you can tell before you even get the bottle to your mouth. You take a long swallow, and then another one, and hand the bottle back. His fingers clamp around yours tightly for a moment before he takes it.

Yeah, you lost a lot. You remember the day you and Bill closed on the roadhouse: you made love in the winter sun, pale and diagonal on the dusty wooden floors. Your water broke behind the bar twenty-three years ago, and you lost Jo's little brother in the cellar three years later, hunched and whimpering in agony as the cramps surged through you. It's all gone now: charred beams and the ash turned to mud in yesterday's rain. Ash--well, you can't know. Maybe Ash survived.

"I can't blame you," you say at last. You free your right hand from the entangling blanket and pat down Dean's arm until you find his wrist, and you close your fingers around it. "If it weren't for you Winchesters, Jo might have been there when it blew."

His arm jerks, and then stills. "Jesus, Ellen. But--"

"I can't care about the rest of it, hon, or you'll hear me howling fit to deafen old Rumsfeld back there. You didn't know, I know you didn't, and Jo's safe and gone."

"Did... did Jo tell you we saw her?" He's very still, the pulse in his wrist fluttering against your fingers. "She was in Duluth, in this bar."

Duluth? Well, could have been worse: she could have been in Chicago. "How was she?"

"We couldn't stay long," he says. "She was waiting tables, doing some hunting."

You squeeze his wrist one last time and let him go. "She was bound to go eventually," you say, although the word "hunting" makes something clench in your chest. But you can't lay that on this boy, not today. You saw John, stubborn bastard that he was, save his sons one last time before--well, you don't know what happened next. He'd better have his wife under his arm, kicking back with Bill over a beer, and shooting the shit with that old reprobate Elkins. If there's a just God, that's what your dead are doing now.

You let yourself smile at the picture: maybe you'll share it with Bobby later, over some of that Johnny Walker Black he doesn't think you know about. "C'mon in, hon," you say, and push yourself to your feet.

You stagger a bit: you can still work a keg of beer onto the dolly, but your body stiffens up a lot faster now than it did when you were twenty. Dean comes up onto his knees and puts a hand out to support you, but you shake him off. "Let's go see if your brother left us any of the coffee."

His face is shadowed, but you see the hesitation in his shoulders, before he shrugs and empties the beer out into the grass. "Sounds good," he says, and when he throws an arm across your shoulder, you let him keep it there as you head back into the house. He's not your family, and you're not his, but you could all use a little warmth in the darkness.


End file.
